En route to sunny North Carolina, we stop at an Eckard’s for some oh-so-neccessary Diet Coke and Junior Mints. As I walk out, a hoard of riff-raff rolls by on skateboards. One particularly squirmy one said, “Hey baby, what’s your name.”

I heard them yell as the rolled out of sight,“Yo, that chick has a camera! Go, go!”

I recently returned from a trip to Turkey, where the people were, most of the time, charming and pleasant. Except for one, however.

I was at a mosque in Istanbul with my parents, and we were walking around the grounds. The mosque is on a hill, and I was standing on a ledge to get a better look of the city below. As I turned around to step off the ledge, I saw a young man with his camera cellphone out, taking a picture of me. I just walked away and joined my parents, thinking that there would be safety in numbers.

We were walking down a flight of stairs when the same young man slipped past me on my left, reached behind him, and grabbed my crotch.

Without even thinking, I punched him on the shoulder as hard as I could. My mom turned to me and said, “What did you do that for?” I told her that he grabbed me. He then had the audacity to walk past us one more time, which is when my mom and I glared at him and told him, “No.” I then held eye contact with him and gave him the finger until he looked away.

I have been the object of visual and verbal harassment before, but I’ve never been groped and it left me shaken and feeling almost guilty, just for being female and somehow attracting that kind of attention.

This jerk accosted me in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a Holla Back, Delaware. (Yet.)

I was out at a *very* crowded concert with a bunch of friends when this guy not only grabbed my ass, but actually did some kind of a slimy under-reach. It was awful. I knocked my elbow back so that I could immediately turn around and see who had done it. I then leaned over and told my friend, a kick-ass gal who immediately came over and got in the guy’s face, and told him to get away from us. He actually refused to move! He said, “Why should I move? I’ve been here for an hour.” She said, “You groped my friend, you need to get away from us now.” He wouldn’t deny the groping, but refused to move. It was so frustrating, and made us feel so vulnerable. Especially when we tried to appeal to others around us for help, and everyone stared at us blankly, like, “Well, what do you expect?”

Finally I remembered an article I’d read about Holla Back NYC, so I walked up to the guy and started snapping away! When he saw me coming he immediately turned away, but I tapped him on the arm, snapped a few, and yelled, “I’m putting you on the web!” He looked startled at that point, and I felt great. Thank you for creating this site!!! It changes everything to be able to turn the tables once in a while, even just a little.

One:
My boyfriend and I were walking to his house after babysitting 6 little children that night. The parents got home around 12 and we ended up playing video games until 3 am.
Leavin their house and making our way across town to my boyfriends, a black small-thing of a truck pulled up beside us, full of American guys [3 I think.], clearly drunk.
One leaned out the window, the music turned down, shouted to me,
“Show us your vagina!” and started to laugh.
Givin them the finger as my boy and I rounded a corner, I shouted clam and clearly back “”only if you show me yours first.”

Two:
My best friend from highschool and I were walking towards Tim Hortons for drinks. Being about 11 pm, and summer, a few kids I didn’t know all stopped to sit in front of KFC, facing McDonalds. They were clearly drunk because each had their own bottle of beer.
As we walked past them, they asked us when McDonald’s closed. But since I she was talking to me and I had my headphones on, we didn’t hear them.
So they shouted back “fucking bitches. I only wanted to know what time!”
I whispered to my friend, “Unless you are going to act like Ashlee Simpson, then I don’t reckon they’s let you in.”

This happened to me in Berkeley… there are a lot of cat calls here. My neighbor said, “Well, that’s what Berkeley is like.” I say it’s inappropriate no matter what city it is and Berkeley deserves a better reputation than that.

First off this guy was persistent. He was hanging out in front of my building by the Laundromat. Every girl that walked by he made a comment “Want to wrestle?” Then he mumbled something to me and I asked to repeat himself. He claimed he didn’t say anything.

Later I was walking up the street he was walking in the same direction. He said “Hey sweetie…” I asked him to stop talking to me and that he was being disrespectful. He started a string of insults about my ass being fat and so on. So I took his picture and told him it would be on Hollaback. He didn’t like it.

On my way home from work, I jumped on the L train and took a seat next to a man trying to hog the space next to him by sitting with his legs spread. I don’t go for that kind of crap, especially during rush hour. He made room for me, but he kept looking me over and I just knew he was going to say something. Here’s how the exchange when down, by far the most heated and close quartered holla back yet:

Him: You have beautiful eyes.
I turn my head slowly and look him in the face.
Him: Your eyes? (he gestures to his own) They’re beautiful.
Me: (slowly and forcefully) “I don’t care what the fuck you think. I don’t need your fucking compliments. So shut the fuck up.”
He is absolutely astounded. “Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
Me: Who the fuck do you think you are talking to me at ALL?
Him: We’re on the subway together–
Me: That doesn’t give you the fucking right to talk to me.
Him: You don’t have the right to talk to me like that. Maybe next time I’ll say something derogatory. How bout that?
Me: Leave me the fuck alone.
Him: You need to watch the way you talk to me.
Me: Then why don’t you quit talking to ME?
Him: No wonder New York is so shitty…
Me: Yeah, because it’s got you in it.
Him: Oh, me? You’re nothing but a white racist.
Me: I’m not racist. I’m not even white. And you’re a sexist.
Him: Not white, oh, what are you then, orange?
Me: Now you’re going to tell me what race I am? [I should have said, “Oh, we got an ethnographer here!”]

At this point it just turns into a stupid repetition of the first few exchanges. I finally just ignore him and go back to my book. He is still reveling from my decline of his compliment and the demand for privacy and peace… Finally, after a few minutes…
Him: (Shaking head) Well I will say this, you got spunk.
Me: Shhh. (keeps reading) [Should have said: If you ever have a daughter I hope “spunk” is enough to keep her from getting raped.]
Him: Did you hear me?

Nothing else is said, but he keeps making these mock astounded gestures and huffy noises. When I get off I make sure to look him right in the eyes one last time (how sexy am I now, fucker?), holding my head high and slightly squinting my eyes in contempt. I don’t know
what washed over his face, surprise? fear? Well I’m not afraid of you, fucker. I’m not anything
you can wrap your tiny brain around, and I’ll talk however I want. That’s what you get when you try to assert your opinions on any given woman. And I’m not the only one who talks back, not by a long shot.

In retrospect, it really surprised me that he’d immediately jump to racism (I guess he was black,
maybe some Latino too?). Oh, because I responded angerly to his pathetic mack I *must* hate his race. I love that shit–a man alluding to equal rights. If I was a man he wouldn’t have said a word to me. If there was true “equality” I would be granted the same silence and respect as a man. I will NEVER take my silence, broken by clumsy implications of my alleged “beauty,” as a compliment. Never.

I have a lot of respect for some New York homeless guys. Many of them are very civil, even if you don’t have money to give them. You can almost tell if the guy is really homeless or not by how he reacts to a simple “sorry, I haven’t got anything.” If he freaks out and starts sexually harassing you, he’s probably just out begging because his wife won’t let him back in the house.

Walking up Madison Ave at 32nd Street, dude start walking right behind me and my friend.
“Nice, nice.”
My friend and I ignore him.
“Niiice.”
I turn around.
“What did you say?”“I said I like your ass.”
“Don’t say stuff like that. I don’t like it.”
I take out my camera, he keeps grinning and being dumb. I take a picture but he turns his head.
So I take another one.“Check out your picture online. HollaBackNYC!“

This “nice catch” found me at 42nd Street – Times Square. He followed me around the station from one platform to another. Then he got on the N with me and stayed on until I got off in Brooklyn. He then got off. I got on the R, and he didn’t. I snapped his photo in case he did anything – and I have it saved. He kept telling me he loved me – over and over and over and making kissing noises and motions with his lips. What a creep he was. Several men told me that they had been watching him talk to me and making the kissing motions and sounds. They said that if he would have done anything, they would have been up. Thankfully, he didn’t try anything.

Also, I had my 7 year old son with me. (That’s part of his head in the side of the photo). So this man was behaving this way in front of MY CHILD!

Thanks again for this service you provide. I wish I had a photo of the first perv I met – who rubbed his penis against my leg!